‘Cyclovias’ restrict mobility in the name of ‘safety’

The San Antonio Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization is having a meeting tonight at the Via Metro Center on 1021 San Pedro at 6:30 PM to discuss cyclovia. If you’re like me, you’ve never heard of such a thing. Well, it’s where government closes a road (whether temporarily or permanently) to autos and gives free rein to bikes and pedestrians to move about ‘safely.’ Whatever happened to learning to interact safely with motorists while both use the roads?

Cyclovia, the MPO’s ‘complete streets’ policy, and the planned massive network of toll roads (57 toll projects in the MPO’s plan already) make it obvious that a war on autos has ensued. It also shows our politicians aren’t interested in solving congestion. They want to manipulate it for profit and for control. Cyclovia may start as a temporary closure for an event, but turns into permanent closures over time.

The new trend in transportation is to implement an agenda, specifically Agenda 21, in the name of ‘safety.’ How many stories do we read on an almost a daily basis that tells of yet another atrocity committed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in regards to airport patdowns? Groping Americans’ private parts, even asking elderly cancer patients to remove their adult diapers, is being done in the name of ‘security’ and ‘safety,’ yet these enhanced techniques wouldn’t have caught the underwear bomber (the reason we’re told the new techniques are necessary) and violate our Fourth Amendment rights.

So why are they doing it? Government control of our freedom to travel. If you want to know where cyclovias lead, look to Columbia. According to Wikipedia, cyclovias originated in Columbia, where the government has used them to supplant the ‘dominance’ of cars in the name of safe cycling: “Mayor Enrique Peñalosa deserves some credit for turning Bogotá into a safe cycling city by taking on the dominance of automobiles in the late 1990s. In 2007, a Colombian congressman, Rep. José Fernando Castro Caycedo, proposed a law restricting the hours of Ciclovias all over the country to between 5 a.m. and 12 noon, charging that it caused traffic jams…The proposal was defeated.”

Agenda 21 initiatives call for restricting mobility and it’s being implemented through planned auto congestion under the auspices of bicycle and pedestrian ‘safety.’ We can all agree that our streets need to be safe for pedestrians (curbs and sidewalks) and cyclists. But Texans like their cars, and they LOVE their freedom.

If you want these anti-car policies to change, attend tonight’s MPO meeting and voice your opinion. Also, the MPO has two vacancies for city councilmembers and one for a state representative. Contact your city councilmember and state representative and let them know what kind of policies you expect from the MPO, and ask them to consider filling a vacancy or to ensure the person who does, balances all modes of transportation without discriminating against motorists.